Wildlife managers in Utah have begun culling mountain lions in six of the state’s sport administration models as a part of a brand new examine. The target of the three-year examine is to gauge the impacts these focused removals might have on deer populations. They’re making an attempt to find out whether or not killing extra mountain lions ends in extra mule deer.
“We’ve seen predation as a possible limiting think about many models,” Kent Hersey, Utah Division of Wildlife Assets large sport initiatives coordinator advised the state wildlife fee throughout a board assembly on Thursday. “When lion predation exceeds seven % or so, deer survival could be very tough. If we will’t obtain inhabitants survival, the inhabitants goes down. That creates additive mortality, and we need to see what occurs after we take away additive mortality.”
This “additive mortality” is cougars, which depend on deer for round 80 % of their eating regimen. The DWR says the six searching models within the examine space have greater than eight % predation, with some models seeing double-digit percentages in recent times.
The follow of killing mountain lions (and different predators) to learn ungulate populations stays a controversial topic amongst wildlife managers. And though Utah will not be the primary state to undertake such an experiment, the response from hunters and trappers there was blended. Some teams are already talking out towards the examine, whereas others are supporting it or taking a wait-and-see method.
“The Utah Houndsmen Affiliation doesn’t assist this examine,” UHA’s outgoing president Cory Huntsman stated in the course of the fee’s public testimony session in January.
Houndsmen, in fact, play an essential position in conserving Utah’s cougar populations in verify and learning the species. As do trappers, who additionally harvest them. And whereas bounties on large cats had been eliminated again within the Nineteen Sixties, when the species achieved regulatory standing, Utah made it simpler for hunters and trappers to regulate cougar populations in 2023 by legalizing lion searching year-round. The DWR’s new multi-year effort ups the ante by including state company trappers to every of the six sport administration models beneath examine: Boulder, Monroe, Stansbury, Pine Valley, Wasatch East, and Zion.
It’s all this further strain that doesn’t sit proper with Huntsman and different houndsmen, who are actually asking the DWR to launch maps of the place the state’s traps and snares are situated.
“We’ve had hounds killed by snares,” Hunstman stated. “Outfitters are scared in order that they’re not searching the lions. They’re counting on state trappers. With a warmth map, you may get the outfitters in there as properly. You’ll give us somewhat peace of thoughts to the place we will flip our canine unfastened.”
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Different searching teams have come out in assist of the examine, which began with the DWR collaring mule deer within the six models throughout late 2025. The Utah Wild Sheep Basis is offering $150,000 in funding, whereas Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife is contributing one other $150,000. The Mule Deer Basis helped with collaring in December and is now ready to see the outcomes of the examine earlier than taking a stance on it. MDF president Greg Sheehan says he was a part of that collaring effort, and that regardless of a light winter to this point, he observed the physique fats on most of the does was extremely low.
“We acknowledge cougars can have a inhabitants impact in some cases, however in different cases they don’t,” Sheehan tells Out of doors Life. He seems ahead to studying the outcomes of the examine and the way managers “will go about implementing adjustments primarily based on these outcomes.”
Not surprisingly, among the identical wildlife teams who pushed again on the 2023 regulation to increase mountain lion searching have spoken out strongly towards the brand new examine. Predator advocacy teams just like the Mountain Lion Basis argue that cougar populations are already in decline, and that different components play an even bigger position than predators in suppressing Utah’s mule deer populations.
“Habitat high quality, winter severity and human strain in the end decide deer restoration not predator eradication,” MLF social media coordinator Anna Wright advised the fee earlier this month. “What these removals reliably do trigger is instability.”
Riley Peck, the incoming director of the DWR, acknowledged in that very same assembly, nevertheless, that the state company is required to do one thing about the downturn in mule deer populations that researchers in Utah and different Western states have seen in latest a long time.
“We now have a mandate from the state legislature that tells us we’re going to have a look at cougar administration and take particular motion when predators may need a top-down impact on a few of our large sport species,” Peck advised these in attendance. “That places us in an attention-grabbing spot as we try to handle for abundance and existence of cats for individuals who need them and handle for an enormous sport species that’s primarily their prey.”
Hersey famous throughout his presentation that mule deer declines are a top-up downside in roughly 70 % of the state — which means populations are struggling because of a lack of habitat, vegetation, and different environmental components. He stated the DWR considers the opposite 30 % of the state to be a top-down downside, which implies predation is the limiting issue.
These science-based issues, nevertheless, don’t take public opinion under consideration. And at a time when some Western states have thought-about outright bans on cougar searching, lion hunters are discovering themselves in the course of a bigger debate.
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“The optics are horrible,” Huntsman warned in his testimony. “A examine like this, with the optics it brings on Utah, I simply don’t assume we have to convey this combat to Utah any quicker than it’s already coming.”
